Martin Luther King Jr’s sister recalls how he foresaw his own death

ATLANTA – Christine King Farris clearly remembers a sermon that her brother, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, gave soon before his assassination 36 years ago.

“It was very touching and piercing to me, so much so that I had to leave the choir loft and go outside and shed a tear,” Farris said. Farris spoke on Saturday as part of the fourth annual ‘Day of Remembrance’ at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.She recalled one of King’s last sermons at Ebenezer, given two months before he was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4 1968.Farris told about 300 people packed into Ebenezer’s sanctuary that the civil-rights leader said in the sermon he wanted to be remembered as a “drum major for justice”.Farris said King told his wife when he got home:”I might have preached my eulogy this morning.”Farris said the sermon was so moving that she and Coretta Scott King, King’s widow, decided to use it at his funeral.Farris recalled how King had earlier directed a march in Memphis at the request of Memphis garbage collectors.When rocks and bottles were hurled, his staff had to push the civil rights leader into a car and take him away.A few days later in Atlanta, Farris said, King told his staff he felt the need to return to Memphis.”He felt he was leaving the people, and he didn’t like that,” Farris said.”He said, ‘We must go back to Memphis and lead a peaceful march’, and of course, he didn’t get a chance to lead that march because he was taken from us.”An exhibit on display through April 30 at the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site displays several photographs, documents and artifacts related to King’s death.Included are a rickety wooden wagon used by mourners to carry King’s casket from Ebenezer to Morehouse College and the autopsy report in which a medical examiner wrote that King died almost immediately after a bullet severed his spinal cord.- Nampa-APFarris spoke on Saturday as part of the fourth annual ‘Day of Remembrance’ at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.She recalled one of King’s last sermons at Ebenezer, given two months before he was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4 1968.Farris told about 300 people packed into Ebenezer’s sanctuary that the civil-rights leader said in the sermon he wanted to be remembered as a “drum major for justice”.Farris said King told his wife when he got home:”I might have preached my eulogy this morning.”Farris said the sermon was so moving that she and Coretta Scott King, King’s widow, decided to use it at his funeral.Farris recalled how King had earlier directed a march in Memphis at the request of Memphis garbage collectors.When rocks and bottles were hurled, his staff had to push the civil rights leader into a car and take him away.A few days later in Atlanta, Farris said, King told his staff he felt the need to return to Memphis.”He felt he was leaving the people, and he didn’t like that,” Farris said.”He said, ‘We must go back to Memphis and lead a peaceful march’, and of course, he didn’t get a chance to lead that march because he was taken from us.”An exhibit on display through April 30 at the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site displays several photographs, documents and artifacts related to King’s death.Included are a rickety wooden wagon used by mourners to carry King’s casket from Ebenezer to Morehouse College and the autopsy report in which a medical examiner wrote that King died almost immediately after a bullet severed his spinal cord.- Nampa-AP